An Immune Cancer Therapy

12.09.2010

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Prof. Meir Wilchek
Since completing his Ph.D. in immunology at the Weizmann Institute, Prof. Zelig Eshhar has focused his research on molecular recognition in the immune system – the mechanisms by which immune cells and molecules "recognize" one another. In the late 1980s, he developed an immune cancer therapy that employs "T bodies" – white blood T cells engineered with receptors that possess the antibodies’ recognition unit, which helps them identify tumors.
 

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In August 2011, University of Pennsylvania researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine that they had successfully used this approach in a pilot trial of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The patients were treated with their own T cells, genetically engineered based on Prof Eshhar’s method. Encouraged by this initial success, the researchers plan to apply the method to the treatment of other malignancies, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, acute lymphocytic leukemia and childhood leukemia that is not alleviated by standard family. They also consider using the T bodies in patients with solid tumors, such as ovarian and pancreatic cancer.
 

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